Thanks for all the discussion and comments guys! Just so I get a few less e-mails (this probably won't change anything) about this: this video is NOT meant to show 'Every Tactics style game ever'. This is meant to show people a few things that are similar. Some that don't get enough love. Yes I do know that Brigandine, Hoshigami, Stella Deus, and like 20 other NIS games, and more, exist. But I didn't highlight everything because not all of those are that similar, and I didn't want to make a 30 minute video. Cheers and good luck on your search!
You may want to do a bit on Tactics Ogre One Vision. It's a mod that is very near 1.0 at this point that takes Tactics Ogre to a whole other level of awesome. It corrects almost every balance and inconsistency issue from the original, while adding a lot of cool new stuff, and while adding some different difficulty, still manages to stay firmly as an immersion mod, not a challenge mod. In shot, it does something few others do, and that's make all of Your units feel like people instead of statistics (Especially the generic ones, who can now stand toe to toe with named characters finally).
@@FingerinUrDaughter you should try listening to the video because he mentions NIS having a ton of similar games. Additionally, you're combining two separate sentences and drawing a conclusion based on the result. Calm yourself, for real.
If you are brave enough to give a different setting a shot, then old school X-COM: UFO Defense is an amazing turn based game. The difficulty is extremely high, just like FFT. Your soldiers get an array of weapons, the aliens armed to the teeth and not shy, and it is time-unit based with heavy emphasis on clever gameplay. Soldiers deaths are final, so think twice about running into the battleground and basically use cover to your fullest advantage: -> You are going to need it. This game was originally released on Playstation but it is available on Steam for the PC. Seriously, if you are up for a challenge, give a few of the landscapes a shot and you will be hooked. Prepare for surprises though... the aliens are aggresive and will definitely keep you saying “Holy ****! I can’t believe this is happening right now!”
FFT might stand alone in how much it offers... from a job system that can sub other jobs, amazing visuals, music, and great story... I kinda wish I played other TRPGs before playing Tactics because i honestly feel like nothing compares sadly.
Ikr fire emblem was my favorite until I play tactics, it feels like a whole new Lvl of tactic RPG, after War of the Lions, I never want to pick up another fire emblem.
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together offers more than FFT. I am not trying to be snarky or anything, but the amount of replay the storyline offers with vastly different branching paths as well as end game dungeons larger than all the story missions in FFT, the game is immense. Large number of vastly different classes, including super powerful secret classes you get before the hardest fights in the game so they can be actually useful. Not to mention Witcher level game changing brutal decisions you are forced to make that alter the story line. It is an amazing game.
Ben Young I played Knights of Lodis. I don't think it offered nearly as much fun as FFT. Lodis lacked the high amount of customization that FFT had with equipment and classes. There was no class mixing. No Dual Wielding Knights, Martial Arts Ninjas, White Mage with Summoner magic, etc. The range of spells and skill were very narrow in Lodis. There were also clear cut better classes in Lodis, and once you got them, there wasn't much of a reason to use anything else. FFT did have a few bunk classes, like Squire, but generally you could find a use for almost any class, or at a minimum their skillset. For example, Calculator was a terrible class to actually be in, but an amazing class to have as a secondary skill. Lodis definitely didn't have the depth FFT had. To date I have yet to find a game that matches FFT's high level of customization.
Square if you are listening, make another FF Tactics and take all of my money please. Not the advanced version but a sequel to the original FF Tactics ffs fans have been begging for over 10 yeats.
This is one of the consequences of a game being exceptionally successful... People don't know what to do afterwards. The same happened more or less with Castlevania after SOTN, Metroid after SM, and others. The advent of the GBA gave a lot of companies the perfect opportunity to release butchered titles that are grossly simplified compared to past releases of the respective series (even the Fire Emblem games are very simplified compared to the SNES games). So they got kinda lazy and lost the will to take the game further. It's easy to nice that the direction of the portable titles is completely distinct.
Why do people not like ffta it is a decent game with a pretty cool story. Its job and ability system is interesting and the judge system makes you flip tactics and keep you on your toes eliminating that just op party of 5 with all jobs mastered. Plus it introduced many great species like the banga and moogles.
For those interested in Tactics Ogre, there's also a fantastic mod out now called One Vision, which irons most of the things the game needed. In general, the utter scope of the TO remake often gets underappreciated, as it's basically a similar system and setting to FFT with about 10x as many plotlines (the writing is way better than it ever needed to be), multiple timelines (there's even a time travel mechanic to go back and try to fix things, though You can never save everyone), and a postgame that even rivals FFTA2 with how much stuff is in there. Often the complaint was actually around the fact that someone familiar with the mechanics could actually break the game with relative ease, which is where One Vision's brilliantly done rebalance comes in. If You want Your current fix of strategy, give that mod a go, seriously.
Great video. Loved FFT, Tactics Ogre, and Vandel Hearts II and a few others. Not sure if you mentioned Bahamut Lagoon, but that was good too. I still need to play some from your list, so thank you!
I can't believe you didn't mention that the composer for the music of Final Fantasy Tactics composed the music for Valkyria Chronicles, Hitoshi Sakimoto! I love his music so damn much!
Because Matsuno got fed up with Square-Enix executives, had a burnout during the development of FFXII and left the company shortly before its release? :p
Yeah, Matsuno hated working for a large company, it's kinda surprising he came back with his team to remake TO:LUCT. That Crimson game on 3DS was really good too, imho.
He returned as freelancer, thought, not as a Square employee. But as he was the original game designer and writer for the series back when he worked for Quest there wasn't much choice on either parts I guess. Crimson Shroud is a nice love letter to pen & paper RPG and choose-your-own-story books, I'm not surprised to see this coming from the guy :) He worked on the scenario and setting of Mad World from Platinum Games, too. Still was fighting with the producers about some elements, thought. You can tell Matsuno doesn't like executives messing around with his storytelling XD
Nope, because Fire Emblem games are designed around an entirely different philosophy. Matsuno's works revolve much more about player agency, which is what makes them great. And that's the reason why I just get frustrated when playing Fire Emblem while I can spend dozens of hours on an Ogre or FFT (or even NIS games and other titles like Stella Deus, Vandal Hearts, etc. that have a similar mentality). It's like the difference between the first two Splinter Cell and MGS for infiltration games. One presents you with one or two optimal solutions that you must stick to or you're screwed; the other lets you play around and come with your own approach.
I liked Jeanne d'Arc from Level 5 on PSP. It is a little easier and simpler than FFT and not as polished IMO, but I really enjoyed it as a more casual portable game.
Another game that's like FFT is Suikoden Tactics. The story was so-n-so, but there's no ignoring the gameplay. Also, if you have a finished file of Suikoden IV (with green text), you can unlock the strongest character in Tactics around the midway point in the game.
Tactics told a surprisingly complex story about faith, politics, and enduring friendship. It also had a complex battle system that allowed for amazing customization of character builds. Then on top of tha t the zodiac comparability and Calculator class that allowed you to target spells using as real different parameters and variables was just mind blowing, and I've yet to see any modern games take it to that level. FFT pushed the limits of tactics games, and it's dra not surprising that nobody has executed a tactics game as well since then considering the game is 20 years old at this point.
If you want to go for a hidden gem, the game Dark Wizard for the Sega CD is another tactics game that's insanely difficult but a ton of fun. I'd also add the PSX game Brigandine to the list as another candidate for really fun/hard tactics game. And finally, years ago on the PC there's the old 'General' games that were all tactics oriented, my personal favorite being Fantasy General. A TON of fun. Good list though, love me some good tactics games.
Stella Glow is a hidden gem from the 3DS. The art style is a bit anime-ish but it does pick up in the gameplay department and with it's story. If you have a 3DS and are looking for a game like this, Stella Glow is worth checking out. There's even a demo.
Finished so much times, FFT, FFT in psp (fell in love with animations), Tactics Ogre Luct (love it), and FFT advance 1&2, Front mission 1,3,4&5. What can i play now? i need job system with rpgstrategy or i will die. (Disgaea doesnt make me want to play it) AHHH Agarest or something like that now i remember.
Great suggestions dude. All fantastic games. I love these style of games and it's good to see love for em. I have a few other suggestions as well for any interested : Stella Deus (ps2), Dragon Shadow Spell (ps2 Japan), Kartia world of fate / Rebus (ps1), Hoshigami (ps1 Japan), Black Matrix 2 (ps2 Japan), Cardinal arc (ps2 Japan), Generations of Chaos IV (ps2 Japan).
Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is another one to add to the list. It came out a few years after this video in 2019 so it's probably one of the newest successors of FFT. It's available for PC on Steam.
Shinning Force Ogre and FF Tactics in my opinion, are the best three. Why can't they make more games like FF tactics, Tactics ogre and shinning force. Shinning force is what got me into FF/Ogre tactics. FF Tactics spoils you for sure. My sodium levels are rising.
Hoshigami is terrible. Character progression is basically useless as enemies level up as your character does. Not to mention the game is ridiculously hard.
I really wish they'd make a game like FFT, but make it an open world where people can have their own little armies and ally and take over cities and have a cool story campaign mode worked into it.
Do you still have to grind a lot for tactics ogre? I did like world's end on game jolt a lot. Fun dialogue and decent battles. Mercenaries saga 2 has a compelling story but encourages too much grinding. Advance wars days of ruin was better on both accounts. Stories drag but super robot wars can be fun; at least you can skip battle animations unlike project X zone so reinforcements aren't as annoying. Lastly, I am noticing the strategies in ccg's and roguelikes; Mabinogi duel and alchemic dungeons are faves of mine.
+Mr. Variant I don't remember having to grind very much at all in the PSP version, but it's been a while. If you do, it's in the later stages of the game and it's pretty minimal.
+Mr. Variant enemies scale up to your level outside story mode fights. In story mode enemies have a set level or scale up to equal your level if you go past their set level. The story it self has 3 paths, to get every character can take you well past 100+ hours so grinding is not rly needed. Its more knowing where you want to be within the story and how to get there.
Sort of for Tactics Ogre. If you want to realistically use any of the specials you might have to grind a bit, and you might have to grind to level up other classes like Ninja. The way the game works is that instead of each unit having an individual level, the class itself has a level and the army follows suit. Like if you have a level 10 soldier, then all of your soldiers will be level 10 instead of ever being level 1. At first this sounds like a blessing in disguise until you realize that Square Enix didn't account for JP earned per battle. This means that if you have a level 10 soldier, it doesn't really matter because (s)he doesn't have any abilities to use so you'll still have to level the unit up for abilities. Combine that with the rather unstable deployment slots that weren't present in the original, and grossly overpowered abilities from enemies at moments, and there WILL be grinding if you decide to use anyone else outside of a set team. To put this into perspective, to level up someone's "sword skill" level to max, it takes longer than leveling up a person to level 50 in the original Tactics Ogre.
Augestein Thanks, I'll probably stick with mercenaries saga 2. Though you have to grind for that dragon battle around chapter 30 or so even on easy. Higher difficulty must grind often.
Great video. I love tactic games all the ones you mentioned are amazing i would only add one thats an oldie but a goodie. Thats "Dark Wizard" on the Saga CD.
Honestly, fire emblem becomes boring after I play FF tactics war of the lions. Dam you Square Enix for setting my tactic standard game so high now And btw, how do u get tactic ogre? I heard it was too expensive
Tactics ogre is wonderful on PSvita, you can just purchase it from the psn for about $10. And also I bought my ps vita for that game in 2013, no regrets thus far.
This seems like a good place to ask this, considering the video. There was a game like FFT for the original Playstation that I remember wanting to get and never could. I remember the article I had read on it describing some of the boss battles being up to an hour long, and they die in a fairly visceral way. This would have been around mid-late 1998, I suppose. I wish I could remember more, but I'm fairly sure the game isn't on this list, though I could be wrong. It's been too long to remember. Also, I don't know how the game went over, so no clue if it was popular or not.
Disgaea is kinda FFT on steroids. if you want more than 99 levels, Disgaea is for you. Having a party of 9999 lvl characters that deal INSANE damage amount has it's advantages. You can also reincarnate your characters to learn other class jobs, power level them, power level items , and replay the story with scaled difficulty. Basically, you can play it multiple times without ever getting bored.
Tactics Ogre is more indepth than FF Tactics (make sure you pick up FF tactics th war of the lions, it's the updated version). But Tactics Ogre is roughly the same quality wise. They're both 10/10 for me, leaning a little more to TO. Just as an addition. you can pick up Valkyria Chronicles 2 on the PS Vita/PS3 from the online store through PSN. (it looks identeical to the one here, it's the full game, awsome graphics)
Can anyone please help me. There is a handheld tactics JRPG. The main character is a girl who works for the church. Her attack is punching. She meets a mysterious dark ally who uses guns. His dark side is evil. Not much to go on I know.
Andrew Caffiene A2 was such a horrible and slow grind fest that I couldn't stomach it. I played it on an emulator at 3x speed and it was still a slow ass grind to even learn a single skill. I couldn't have the patience with it. And the races still felt horribly balanced. Humans, Moogles and Viera were pretty much the top races and the rest were just "Meh" in comparison. Moogles had insane range, Viera were nerfed on Assassin, but Blood Price Double Cast was just as broken and humans had their Parivir shenanigans and Magick Frenzy.
PinuyashaRPG I think I may have had an easier time on the learning front because I went for specific things and spammed them most of the time. Then just handed them a new thing to carry around every now and then while sticking to those starter moves (with the bonuses, few seemed to take too long imho...at least compared to TOLUCT's more useful stuff). Then again, most fights rarely last two rounds, there was a combo I used from relatively early on: just have someone drop an Ether on that fluffy bear thing illusionist, and have him turbo-mp whatever everyone's weak to. Now THAT was broken. Fairly easy to get, and it was like a one-shot smart bomb. When I could my lizard guy into a cannoneer, and just use either shots instead (I just imagined they were hanging out at a bar, and the fluffy guy snaps how fingers every now and then to make problems go away). Either way, overall I think I had the literal opposite impression. Humans had a lot of skills, but seemed to have a damage dropoff, mostly had my two as support. moogles had cool moves, but my favorite was a gunner with the knight skills. he just stopped things when needed, and apparently the knight Ultima move still works with a gun. Bunny lady was mostly there for status effects...I don't think I even used the new groups much.
Andrew Caffiene I mixed up the Cannoneer and Flintlock class. Bangaa had Cannoneer, so they were the useful ones, not the Moogles. If you combined Dual Wield + Magick Frenzy on a Human, they would hit ALL enemies on the map with a spell, then strike them twice with each weapon equipped. That's 3 hits total with infinite range. The damage output and utility is just crazy. And it makes the Nu Mou worthless because Humans dealt more damage while needing less Ethers. Same with the Viera. Blood Price meant they used their HP to cast when they didn't have MP. A Viera Summoner can equip a robe to absorb let's say Fire, then Dualcast Ifrit on on enemies and themselves. Ifrit would damage the enemies and heal the Viera for far more than the MP they spent to cast the spell. Therefore a Viera was an infinite spring of MP. They fueled themselves and could never run out. You didn't play this game nearly as in-depth as you think if you didn't discover these insanely broken combos. Humans and Viera invalidated ALL other races and their broken combos even invalidate all of the other classes in their own race. The only purpose every other class served was to support these broken races destroying everything. You could camp in a corner and Illutionist Magick Frenzy the entire map while a Cannoneer feeds you free MP or you can have a Viera nuke the field with infinite Summons and Ultima Mashers. But that unbalanced stuff aside, that doesn't change the fact that the game is HORRENDOUSLY slow. There's so much lag between selecting actions and performing them. There's lag everywhere in this game with every action. Even when the AI is picking their move, there's just SO MUCH LAG. I swear to Yevon the AI takes a million years to decide actions. Open up a video of FFTA2 being played and open up a video of FFT being played. Just look at how long the AI takes to move in FFT vs FFTA2. Look how long it takes for menus to open up and for characters to perform actions. It's ridiculous how slow it is. Then if we compare JP vs AP gaining. JP is per action. AP is per battle. JP scales up in amount gained by the unit's level and Job Level. The farther in game you get, the faster it is to learn skills from a class and to level that class up. AP never exceeds 90 per battle and that's late game when you have the Clan Privileges for it. I can learn a single 100 JP skill in 2-3 actions later on in FFT. I must still fight 2 battles to learn one 100 AP skill in FFTA2, and that 80 leftover AP is completely wasted. I had to do a whole battle for one stupid ability. If I want to grind on FFT, I can have a character spam actions to get a ton of JP fast. JP also spills over to other units by 33%. So if one character gets 30 JP for Black Mage, then all units with get 10 JP in Black Mage as well (33% of the 30 JP). Spamming actions for one unit levels all units, and this effect is magnified when you have two characters of the same class JP boosting themselves and the other units indirectly. FFTA2 has no mechanics like this built in. You must fight many stupid, boring and easily won battles to learn any skills. And with no spillover AP, any time a character switches to a new class, they are worthless. They have 0 abilities and no way to learn more aside from entering battle while being dead weight. This does not happen in FFT because a unit fresh to a class can use Spillover JP to pick up a few nice skills. And they will probably have gained a few Job Levels in the process, so they will master a new class faster than the previous unit who they got the Spillover JP from. It's brilliant. Meanwhile, FFTA2 promotes the use of a diverse range of classes split among a diverse pool of races, but makes it even harder to keep everyone on the same footing as each other. Also, since Abilities are tied to equipment, even if you get a new class, if you don't have the right equipment, they are worthless. They'll have no abilities. FFT does not gate you at all. Learn whatever your heart desires. The way FFTA2 handles AP is what turns FFTA2 into a slow dredge through a swamp. And the original FFTA is no better, but I'd like to focus on FFTA2, and I can just say "Laws" and you already know FFTA sucks.
You ever tried FFTA X? It was a pretty decent overhaul to FFTA that fixed a lot of the dull stuff. Granted, FFT is such a friggin beauty of game design that I doubt we'll see much more unless we get time-traveling versions of those people. Mostly I say this in case You've ever played Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together. If not, here was more or less the deal. Originally, it was the thing that led to FFT, You had a few classes, and skills were few and locked in per class, with changeable spell and item slots, up to 4 per person. It worked wonders for shenanigans, since You could drop a spear on a fairy with 3 evasion items and have the most annoying harasser ever. Both of the original two Tactics Ogre games were more about setting up formations, You could have double the amount of units of FFT in most cases, and setting up Your units on good ground was often more important than having one overpowered one. Anyhow, the original LUCT was a balancing mess, with archers being ungodly broken under every single circumstance, but the GBA prequel was actually pretty amazing, if, well, slow. That mess was slooooow as crap, but again, the gba wasn't exactly a supercomputer. If You speed it up on an emulator, it's really an incredibly good strategy game. The GBA one was slightly more linear, but had way better balance, the original had one hell of a story with a choose-Your-own-adventure type thing going on, but yeah, levels mattered too much, and man...them archers. So now back to me point, a good bit of the people from FFT came back around 2010ish to make a remake of their original strategy game, trying to make it more like FFT. Thing is, they took it a biiiit too far. See, the original LUCT had You losing units pretty regularly, this was a war, after all, the narrative reflected this, and if You got Your unique guys to the end, You earned Your extra dialogue and story sequences. At any time, the damage was as high as FFT, so units were far from safe, even an overpowered team of archers. So when they made they remake, they added in skills, more classes, crafting (OH GOD NO THE SLOWNESS D-:) removed gender classes, added a death counter, and then gave everyone 3 lives on top of that. The issue was that whoever balanced the skills must have been drunk or never played a game before, because that mess was confusing. One that gets mentioned a lot are the passives, like Fortify and Strengthen. You would think "Hey, I ran into those, they just boost defense and offense, seems basic, I'll take them.". Well, Your passives, specials and actives all have to fit into 10 slots. Normally I'd like that sort of system, but here's the thing, those ones I mentioned above? Well...they only work under incredibly specific circumstances. Like strengthen only actually strengthens based on whether or not You're already stronger than the other guy, in which case it's like 6% or something. Meanwhile You get other moves that give 100% hit chance and 100% critical on someone halfway across the map. Oh, and You don't level units, that's another confusing thing, You level their class, which then is hindered by their level for getting better things. So You can have a guy that's basically like Orlandu in a fight, and he's suddenly 30 levels, or like 45 fights below everyone else when he joins. The only way to effectively raise him is to just turn everyone into his class, then grind it out on a bunch of battles with no skills whatsoever. Each unit has a pool of skill points for every class, but rarely do they actually cross over between classes, and even then seem to do so with minimal actual usefulness. Hell, some have no purpose at all, like giving a knight a cudgel. You'd think "Knight plus mace = paladin or some crap"...well, the way weapon skills work, if someone doesn't have one, they just suck, if they do have it they get to near perfect accuracy real quick, and then 2+ (You grind these up independently), You get killmoves based on what is a more or less momentum bar. The only usefulness that skill has is if You gave some guy a stick, made them beat a squishy class over the head with it for like 6 hours, got it to 2 (It's based on damage, cudgels can barely break double digits usually), and then, You can do a crappy hit 4 times in a row. Compare that with swords, which are decent and usually get a double slash within an hour, or bows that can cripple peoples, or crossbows, which turn into a friggin grenade launcher at level 2. I kid You not, their special is an AOE explosion that doesn't need to even be in sight to work. Plus with heavy crossbows being available right at the start, You can functionally just go to a medieval war with modern firepower. Anyhow, sorry for the wall of text, there was a lot to that one. I still like it...game's smooth as glass in terms of presentation, friggin love the music to death, the story is amazing and adaptive, and man is everything other than the crafting snappy, but it just bothers me to think of how amazing this remake could've been.
good video...pretty good recommendation thanks bro...and this video is exactly what I was looking for ...some games similar to FFT ....so tactis ogre and valkirye chronicles looks awsome.... I have already played Fire emblem from game and this game is perfect
If you're looking for MMOs, I do recommend wakfu and Dofus. Wakfu is well made however I do find the combat of Dofus way more engaging when they don't nerf your favorite class.
I really enjoyed front mission 3 and loved it just as much as final fantasy tactics. Those a disgaea are the only strategy games where I had spent over 200+ hours to play.
There was another game on playstation like tactics I cant remember the name but you would fight as mythological monsters , they had Griffins, Dragons , Phoenixes, it was really a good game. Everytime you attacked it would have a cut scene , I dont remember if you could skip it or not
I personally like ffta and a2. I like how different races have their own mechanics, and some unique jobs for each class. The story is a bit lacking though as I like to take non story quests with non story characters more, making up my own story in my head. Another tactics game I really love is the Advance Wars games. It's not quite like fft, but it's a whole lot of fun, even more if played with friends. I guess there's also that Ragnarok Tactics game on the PSP. I don't remember what it's called. The story is very boring though, the only fun I had with it is the character creation. You could create and customize an entire party and make up your own stories, at least that's how I played it.
The great thing about FFTA is that it has a better job roster, IMO even better that FFT. In the original, ninjas/chemists had to learn to throw/use EVERY item, dragoons had to learn to reach EVERY tile, and archers had to learn to charge EVERY power level for their aim skill. Not to mention other jobs no one used that were too ineffective, like the bard, orator and the dancer, as well as complicated jobs like mime and arithmetician. And honestly, multiplayer is a dead end for anyone without friends to play, so making a stronger dark knight or viable onion knight was a pipe dream. FFT jobs were all pretty straight-forward. Some were weird, but all were pretty spartan in their skill sets to the point you only really need the 1st 10 jobs. FFTA on the other hand makes it fun to use every job. Synergry is really great, such as a mog knight main with jester sub-abilites. Also paladin with blue mage sub abilities and double sword. Another fun thing to do was make an unstoppable team than the game literally couldn't beat you anymore. The Advance job roster eliminates nearly all the redundancies of the 1st game. The only jobs I didn't use were the Soldier, because it was outclassed by other jobs, and the Gadgeteer, because its abilities were too unpredictable.
RPGMaster FFT may have the better story, but it's bias to dismiss FFTA's story just because it wasn't as good. It was basically about a kid trying to get some other kids to deal with their escapist issues and come back to reality. It might not be as epic or well-written as FFT and a lot of people do feel the plot is watered down because the resolution was quite obvious to people who understood FFT's level of maturity, but let's not forget the console FFTA was developed for was the GBA. Kids bought them at the time and they were the target demographic, so a simple enough story was needed. And as early FF games have proven, even simple stories can be great. So yeah FFT has the better story, but FFTA still did a great job too.
movement system is weird because an enemy moves at the same time you do. After the first 1-2 battles you can see the pattern though. The story is unique though and I thought it was done very well.
Yes and the villains had depht (at least for the ps1 era). And although the movement system is weird I like it and sometimes it can catch of guard if you make a wrong prediction.
Invisible Inc is a great turn based strategy game, I played it for free when it came to PS plus and was blown away by the difficulty. It's an espionage turn based strategy game and is really amazing, challenging with insane replay value.
this list was nice. however, until i get a PS4 or PS vita, seems not many other tactics games offer a class system with the amount of customizability and depth per playable character that final fantasy tactics offers. from each playable character being able to unlock each class to being able to unlock skills from each class for each character, to allow for maximum strategizing before each storyline battle
PSP version of Tactics Ogre isn't the definitive version. It adds some cool things sure, but it also adds some things to the game that really kill it. Want to change classes to a brand new class you just acquired in Chapter 4? They start on level 1, so you're required to toss them in the corner until they're up to the rest of the teams level, because not only are they on level 1, but equipment has a level requirement, making the class completely worthless until they're closer to the rest of the characters levels. Archers and magic users were a bit more powerful than melee users in the original, but now the classes are a joke in comparison. Movement is reduced by one for every class, so progression is abysmally slow this time around. It has some nice additions, but the definitive edition means best version, and the original and PSX port are it.
While not as good as FF Tactics, I immensely enjoyed Vandal Hearts 1 (didn't like 2 for the simultaneous turn system). Saiyuki: Journey to the West is another good one (although very easy with low production values). You can check them out Game Clouds! No mention of X-Com either?!?!
Why no Vandal Hearts II ? I played it first before FFT. And its so good. so I got a bit annoyed at FFT camera angles during gameplay. But FFTs jobs are great.
@@GameClouds Well but at least he knows what a good game was. Tactic and story are nice and a special mention to how every villain had a point. Unlike other games where the villains are evil to be evil. All in all great for the Ps1 era.
Hi i love tactics games , fft is my favorite.. i know other but its not very famous; Eternal poison for PS2, and a new game by nexon for android called Fantasy war tactics wich i LOVE! is a 10/10 for me try it im sure you will enjoy it or anyone here who likes tactics games :)
Speaking of games like Final Fantasy Tactics, you should've definitely mentioned Shingen the Ruler for the Nintendo. It was released years before Shining Force and could've possibly been the first game to feature the turn-based strategy gameplay long before role-playing games did it.
actually... I have a SRPG that very few if ANYONE ever talks about, and people tend to be negative about it because of how poor it's visuals have aged, the platform it's for, and a rather rough translation. It's called Guardian War, or Powers Kingdom in Japan. Guardian War is a strategy RPG that takes place on a strange alien world where the goddess Hera battles the dark forces of Azriel. her ability to fight is weakened though, save for the power to awaken a single Golem in a shrine. it then becomes that Golem's mission to go about the world, fighting his way through monsters to get to other shrines to wake up it's golem bretheren. Why I suggest this one is because although it's VERY simplified, the golems all get changable bodies that function like the Jobs of Final Fantasy Tactics, with your golems having to level up in a specific body type to become more proficient with it and unlock even more potent versions of that body to change into. you can have one main body and two sub-bodies, effectively making this something akin to the job system! If you want other suggestions for this list, Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth is probably another great suggestion that could go on this list. Crimson Shroud on 3DS might also scratch the itch of those who particularly are fans of Matsuno's work. Pokemon Conquest may also help.
Hoshigami IMHO is not that great. For some reason they decided that the selling point for the game would have to be its insane difficulty, where even grinding can be risky for your squad integrity. I stopped playing it after my character getting permakilled by 3 archers before anyone from my team got a move.
Another great one to add is Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday on the Genesis... And you completely forgot about Shining Force III on the Saturn, or Shining Force CD, even though it was a remake of the Game Gear titles it had hours upon hours of great SRPG gameplay in store
jeanne d'arc is probably better than at least 1 of those-- I'd put it above fire emblem as a whole. Arc the Lad series is at least worth a mention. Nothing can even touch Tactics though.
I grew up on Shining Force 1 and 2 and have played through the game at least 15x in the last twenty years or so. Amazing game and would highly recommend it. Only $2 on Steam.
Knight of lodis Luminous arc Advance wars Those were the days! In fact, I hope to play them on 3dsxl using flash Rom. If not, I'll pick up a dsixl and get the cartridge.
FFT is the ultimate tactics game, Tactic Orge is a VERY good game but The 2 that I like a whole lot are Dynasty Tactics 1 & 2, DT2 is really cool bcuz of the combos one can do. Also you can choose from 3 Main characters and you can play multiple times to clear storylines. The bigger plus to both games is that it has PvP option, so cool to battle your opponents but they are not online challenges, highly recommend.
Brigandine gets overlooked. It was a classic on PS1, and its been remade for switch but because it was made by a small and little known team it isnt well known, but it is a great tactics game. Not so much rpg, but more of a conquer-the-map game with heavy rpg features and a class change system for human and monster characters. worth checking out, though as far as I know its only on switch I could be wrong.....
Thanks for all the discussion and comments guys! Just so I get a few less e-mails (this probably won't change anything) about this: this video is NOT meant to show 'Every Tactics style game ever'. This is meant to show people a few things that are similar. Some that don't get enough love.
Yes I do know that Brigandine, Hoshigami, Stella Deus, and like 20 other NIS games, and more, exist. But I didn't highlight everything because not all of those are that similar, and I didn't want to make a 30 minute video.
Cheers and good luck on your search!
Game Clouds I recommend Spectral Souls. It's the most closest game to fft
I love how you brought NIS into it!!!
Hahahahahaha!!!
You may want to do a bit on Tactics Ogre One Vision. It's a mod that is very near 1.0 at this point that takes Tactics Ogre to a whole other level of awesome. It corrects almost every balance and inconsistency issue from the original, while adding a lot of cool new stuff, and while adding some different difficulty, still manages to stay firmly as an immersion mod, not a challenge mod. In shot, it does something few others do, and that's make all of Your units feel like people instead of statistics (Especially the generic ones, who can now stand toe to toe with named characters finally).
@@FingerinUrDaughter you should try listening to the video because he mentions NIS having a ton of similar games. Additionally, you're combining two separate sentences and drawing a conclusion based on the result. Calm yourself, for real.
If you are brave enough to give a different setting a shot, then old school X-COM: UFO Defense is an amazing turn based game. The difficulty is extremely high, just like FFT. Your soldiers get an array of weapons, the aliens armed to the teeth and not shy, and it is time-unit based with heavy emphasis on clever gameplay. Soldiers deaths are final, so think twice about running into the battleground and basically use cover to your fullest advantage: -> You are going to need it. This game was originally released on Playstation but it is available on Steam for the PC. Seriously, if you are up for a challenge, give a few of the landscapes a shot and you will be hooked. Prepare for surprises though... the aliens are aggresive and will definitely keep you saying “Holy ****! I can’t believe this is happening right now!”
FFT might stand alone in how much it offers... from a job system that can sub other jobs, amazing visuals, music, and great story... I kinda wish I played other TRPGs before playing Tactics because i honestly feel like nothing compares sadly.
Ikr fire emblem was my favorite until I play tactics, it feels like a whole new Lvl of tactic RPG, after War of the Lions, I never want to pick up another fire emblem.
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together offers more than FFT. I am not trying to be snarky or anything, but the amount of replay the storyline offers with vastly different branching paths as well as end game dungeons larger than all the story missions in FFT, the game is immense. Large number of vastly different classes, including super powerful secret classes you get before the hardest fights in the game so they can be actually useful. Not to mention Witcher level game changing brutal decisions you are forced to make that alter the story line. It is an amazing game.
Ben Young I played Knights of Lodis. I don't think it offered nearly as much fun as FFT. Lodis lacked the high amount of customization that FFT had with equipment and classes. There was no class mixing. No Dual Wielding Knights, Martial Arts Ninjas, White Mage with Summoner magic, etc. The range of spells and skill were very narrow in Lodis. There were also clear cut better classes in Lodis, and once you got them, there wasn't much of a reason to use anything else. FFT did have a few bunk classes, like Squire, but generally you could find a use for almost any class, or at a minimum their skillset. For example, Calculator was a terrible class to actually be in, but an amazing class to have as a secondary skill.
Lodis definitely didn't have the depth FFT had. To date I have yet to find a game that matches FFT's high level of customization.
PinuyashaRPG I meant Let Us Cling Together. I don't know why I didn't check my comment before posting, but I have not even played through Lodis.
Try Shadowrun games on Steam.
Square if you are listening, make another FF Tactics and take all of my money please. Not the advanced version but a sequel to the original FF Tactics ffs fans have been begging for over 10 yeats.
a sequel is kind tough to imagine but certainly a prequel does fit there!
Sequel? no please. But something with a more serious history/gameplay closer to the original game withou the advanced garbage .
not a sequal, a different setting but with the same amount of seriousness. not the advance kawai BS
This is one of the consequences of a game being exceptionally successful... People don't know what to do afterwards. The same happened more or less with Castlevania after SOTN, Metroid after SM, and others. The advent of the GBA gave a lot of companies the perfect opportunity to release butchered titles that are grossly simplified compared to past releases of the respective series (even the Fire Emblem games are very simplified compared to the SNES games).
So they got kinda lazy and lost the will to take the game further. It's easy to nice that the direction of the portable titles is completely distinct.
Why do people not like ffta it is a decent game with a pretty cool story. Its job and ability system is interesting and the judge system makes you flip tactics and keep you on your toes eliminating that just op party of 5 with all jobs mastered. Plus it introduced many great species like the banga and moogles.
For those interested in Tactics Ogre, there's also a fantastic mod out now called One Vision, which irons most of the things the game needed. In general, the utter scope of the TO remake often gets underappreciated, as it's basically a similar system and setting to FFT with about 10x as many plotlines (the writing is way better than it ever needed to be), multiple timelines (there's even a time travel mechanic to go back and try to fix things, though You can never save everyone), and a postgame that even rivals FFTA2 with how much stuff is in there. Often the complaint was actually around the fact that someone familiar with the mechanics could actually break the game with relative ease, which is where One Vision's brilliantly done rebalance comes in. If You want Your current fix of strategy, give that mod a go, seriously.
I played Onimusha Tactics (GBA) back before & loved that game very much !
Soukuden tactics is amazing too. FFT is my top favorite FF and I’ve always wanted a prequel with the 50 year war and balbanes as the main
Tactics ogre and final fantasy tactics I wil be buried with theses 2 awesome games
I enjoyed FFTactics only because of the job system 😂 it felt so fun having the ability to grind for jobs and skills
Great video. Loved FFT, Tactics Ogre, and Vandel Hearts II and a few others. Not sure if you mentioned Bahamut Lagoon, but that was good too. I still need to play some from your list, so thank you!
I can't believe you didn't mention that the composer for the music of Final Fantasy Tactics composed the music for Valkyria Chronicles, Hitoshi Sakimoto! I love his music so damn much!
Why won't they give us a new upgraded FFT for the PS4? why? my money is waiting for it
Because Matsuno got fed up with Square-Enix executives, had a burnout during the development of FFXII and left the company shortly before its release? :p
Yeah, Matsuno hated working for a large company, it's kinda surprising he came back with his team to remake TO:LUCT. That Crimson game on 3DS was really good too, imho.
He returned as freelancer, thought, not as a Square employee. But as he was the original game designer and writer for the series back when he worked for Quest there wasn't much choice on either parts I guess.
Crimson Shroud is a nice love letter to pen & paper RPG and choose-your-own-story books, I'm not surprised to see this coming from the guy :)
He worked on the scenario and setting of Mad World from Platinum Games, too. Still was fighting with the producers about some elements, thought. You can tell Matsuno doesn't like executives messing around with his storytelling XD
Too bad, too. Could you imagine this guy on a Fire Emblem title?
Nope, because Fire Emblem games are designed around an entirely different philosophy. Matsuno's works revolve much more about player agency, which is what makes them great. And that's the reason why I just get frustrated when playing Fire Emblem while I can spend dozens of hours on an Ogre or FFT (or even NIS games and other titles like Stella Deus, Vandal Hearts, etc. that have a similar mentality). It's like the difference between the first two Splinter Cell and MGS for infiltration games. One presents you with one or two optimal solutions that you must stick to or you're screwed; the other lets you play around and come with your own approach.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 is pretty damn good, and that OST.
Man, that OST.
Also, i'm playing Chroma Squad now on pc, also pretty good!
Ffta2 is awful compared to ffta. The class nerfs in ffta2 were just disgusting.
@Saki Maro lol that's not true at all
FFTA2 was wayyyyyyy too easy and the story wasn't as good.
@ZeugeCoronasLP one of the few reasons i dont like ff12
I liked Jeanne d'Arc from Level 5 on PSP. It is a little easier and simpler than FFT and not as polished IMO, but I really enjoyed it as a more casual portable game.
Which version were you showcasing in the beginning because that version of Tactics graphics looked a little extra detailed.
FFTA was the first game and best game and most fun game I ever 100% completed and I have never found a game more enjoyable since
best game of all time.. still play it till this day. we need more games like this.. !!
Thank you for a well made and interesting video. Just ordered Tactics Ogre for £10 and can't wait to get started.
Thanks! Have fun with the game!
if you like tactical RPG... prepare to lose your soul.
Great video! Love these types of games and have all these! Just got God Wars for my Vita very excited to dive in and check out the job system.
Another game that's like FFT is Suikoden Tactics. The story was so-n-so, but there's no ignoring the gameplay. Also, if you have a finished file of Suikoden IV (with green text), you can unlock the strongest character in Tactics around the midway point in the game.
I'm really glad you gave an honorable mention to Jeanne D'arc on PSP. That game was actually really sweet I still play it to this day.
Until you press "new game" and fuck everything up for them.... Made my day
I remember growing up with the PS1. There were so many tactical rpgs that came out every year you couldn't play them all
4:10 How did you take cover from those shots? I've never seen that.
Great list, I couldn't think of one that I would add instead of your picks. I'll be back again and I subbed
Thanks! :D
Excellent video, thank you.
My question is, why aren't there any Tactics style games that are competitive multiplayer? (I hope someone proves me wrong)
Xcom Enemy within
There are a few, mostly PC only though. Heroes of might & magic is a good place to start.
What about SHINING FORCE III and MYSTARIA both for Satun?? I have FF tactics and Shining Force III is awesome.
Tactics told a surprisingly complex story about faith, politics, and enduring friendship. It also had a complex battle system that allowed for amazing customization of character builds. Then on top of tha t the zodiac comparability and Calculator class that allowed you to target spells using as real different parameters and variables was just mind blowing, and I've yet to see any modern games take it to that level. FFT pushed the limits of tactics games, and it's dra not surprising that nobody has executed a tactics game as well since then considering the game is 20 years old at this point.
Is this the game where you start with a snowball fight and then are led to this tactic ogre world?? Please answer
If you want to go for a hidden gem, the game Dark Wizard for the Sega CD is another tactics game that's insanely difficult but a ton of fun. I'd also add the PSX game Brigandine to the list as another candidate for really fun/hard tactics game. And finally, years ago on the PC there's the old 'General' games that were all tactics oriented, my personal favorite being Fantasy General. A TON of fun. Good list though, love me some good tactics games.
u ever played brigandine grand edition?... is quite similar to dark wizard... IMO a bit better...
Dark Wizard was badass... I keep meaning to go back to it, those battles were long and epic
Vandal Hearts is amazing :DDDDDDDDD
Yes I still have it.
I love those two! The first one looks better and the class system is nice, but tactic and story are better in two. Though completing 2 is hard.
LOVE that game! That was basically my backup game if I got burned out on TacticsOG. Might have to revisit that game soon.
Indeed. Very underrated game, but I loved both Vandal Hearts
Congrats on 500 subs. I'm your 500th👍
Thanks dude! Appreciate the support, hopefully I earn it :D
Stella Glow is a hidden gem from the 3DS. The art style is a bit anime-ish but it does pick up in the gameplay department and with it's story. If you have a 3DS and are looking for a game like this, Stella Glow is worth checking out. There's even a demo.
Teh_Akod yeah it is good ive been playing it a lot and now im in the 2nd playthrough trying to max all affinity, too bad the studio went bankrupt
how does their version of a job system feel like compared to ffta? asking cause ive been interested for about 3 years to get it now
Finished so much times, FFT, FFT in psp (fell in love with animations), Tactics Ogre Luct (love it), and FFT advance 1&2, Front mission 1,3,4&5. What can i play now? i need job system with rpgstrategy or i will die. (Disgaea doesnt make me want to play it) AHHH Agarest or something like that now i remember.
Great suggestions dude. All fantastic games. I love these style of games and it's good to see love for em. I have a few other suggestions as well for any interested : Stella Deus (ps2), Dragon Shadow Spell (ps2 Japan), Kartia world of fate / Rebus (ps1), Hoshigami (ps1 Japan), Black Matrix 2 (ps2 Japan), Cardinal arc (ps2 Japan), Generations of Chaos IV (ps2 Japan).
While they're not sRPG, I find that Suikoden games are by far the closest in feeling to Tactics, because they also focus on political intrigues.
Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is another one to add to the list. It came out a few years after this video in 2019 so it's probably one of the newest successors of FFT. It's available for PC on Steam.
Switch. PS4/5 as well
Snes Tactics Ogre it's still the best one (that scene with the music box in the church.....anyone who saw it already got my reference and feelings)...
Lancelot Hamilton ftw
PoLlOrOn T_T
Lanselot's fate will forever be the saddest thing in any Tactics game.
Any other tactical RPG with a job system? I only like FFT due to the job system.
Shinning Force Ogre and FF Tactics in my opinion, are the best three. Why can't they make more games like FF tactics, Tactics ogre and shinning force. Shinning force is what got me into FF/Ogre tactics. FF Tactics spoils you for sure. My sodium levels are rising.
Arc the Lad also used this battle format and was a pretty good series, or at least 1 and 2, never got very far in 3...
Ditto ( 0:08 EXACTLY my feeling! )
Great vid man, ALL these titles are amazing.
Thanks for the list.
Hoshigami (PS1/DS); Brigandine: Grand Edition (PS1); Summon Night 1, 2 (PS1), 3, 4 (PS2), 5 (PSP); Grand Knights Story (PSP), Kartia (PS1) Luminous Ark 1, 2, 3 (DS) ... i would honorably mention those...
Hoshigami is terrible. Character progression is basically useless as enemies level up as your character does. Not to mention the game is ridiculously hard.
Kartia was good
Arc the Lad Series
What kind of emulator are you using for tactics ogre? I cant seem to get it.
Someone can tell me if Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together it's good as The Knight of Lodis or even better?
It's about the same if not a little better.
I really wish they'd make a game like FFT, but make it an open world where people can have their own little armies and ally and take over cities and have a cool story campaign mode worked into it.
Stella Deus and Eternal Poison are awesome games too
Loved the animations in Stella. Sadly, I never finished it. Gonna have to revisit.
Very good suggestions indeed. I'd put Vandal Hearts in the top 5 tough ;) they were amazing games.
Agreed!
Do you still have to grind a lot for tactics ogre? I did like world's end on game jolt a lot. Fun dialogue and decent battles.
Mercenaries saga 2 has a compelling story but encourages too much grinding. Advance wars days of ruin was better on both accounts.
Stories drag but super robot wars can be fun; at least you can skip battle animations unlike project X zone so reinforcements aren't as annoying.
Lastly, I am noticing the strategies in ccg's and roguelikes; Mabinogi duel and alchemic dungeons are faves of mine.
+Mr. Variant I don't remember having to grind very much at all in the PSP version, but it's been a while. If you do, it's in the later stages of the game and it's pretty minimal.
+Mr. Variant enemies scale up to your level outside story mode fights. In story mode enemies have a set level or scale up to equal your level if you go past their set level. The story it self has 3 paths, to get every character can take you well past 100+ hours so grinding is not rly needed. Its more knowing where you want to be within the story and how to get there.
Sort of for Tactics Ogre. If you want to realistically use any of the specials you might have to grind a bit, and you might have to grind to level up other classes like Ninja. The way the game works is that instead of each unit having an individual level, the class itself has a level and the army follows suit. Like if you have a level 10 soldier, then all of your soldiers will be level 10 instead of ever being level 1. At first this sounds like a blessing in disguise until you realize that Square Enix didn't account for JP earned per battle. This means that if you have a level 10 soldier, it doesn't really matter because (s)he doesn't have any abilities to use so you'll still have to level the unit up for abilities. Combine that with the rather unstable deployment slots that weren't present in the original, and grossly overpowered abilities from enemies at moments, and there WILL be grinding if you decide to use anyone else outside of a set team.
To put this into perspective, to level up someone's "sword skill" level to max, it takes longer than leveling up a person to level 50 in the original Tactics Ogre.
Augestein Thanks, I'll probably stick with mercenaries saga 2. Though you have to grind for that dragon battle around chapter 30 or so even on easy. Higher difficulty must grind often.
Thomas Votik you are an amazing gamer. That hell gate sounds like ghosts 'n goblins having to beat it twice. How appropriately named.
Great video. I love tactic games all the ones you mentioned are amazing i would only add one thats an oldie but a goodie. Thats "Dark Wizard" on the Saga CD.
Honestly, fire emblem becomes boring after I play FF tactics war of the lions. Dam you Square Enix for setting my tactic standard game so high now
And btw, how do u get tactic ogre? I heard it was too expensive
It's only 20$ on PSP, which is the best version of the game.
thank you
***** wow thanks that was helpful
Tactics ogre is wonderful on PSvita, you can just purchase it from the psn for about $10.
And also I bought my ps vita for that game in 2013, no regrets thus far.
Mike valkyria chronicles were pretty easy yeah, unless you play the one with the Nameless story
FFT & OBT set the standards really high for me as a kid...I really want a re-release with higher resolution graphics.
All the feels; childhood played everything except fire emblem which I didnt have the platforms for. Good stuff
Valkyria Chronicles and VC3 is seriously under rated.
Good list but you missed an even older game than Tactics from the Sega CD called Dark Wizard. Check it out if you can find a copy/LP of it somewhere.
Vandal Hearts 1 is by far the greatest tactical RPG ever in my opinion.
Vandal heartd and shining force
Are there any PS4 games coming out that have this style?
This seems like a good place to ask this, considering the video. There was a game like FFT for the original Playstation that I remember wanting to get and never could. I remember the article I had read on it describing some of the boss battles being up to an hour long, and they die in a fairly visceral way. This would have been around mid-late 1998, I suppose. I wish I could remember more, but I'm fairly sure the game isn't on this list, though I could be wrong. It's been too long to remember. Also, I don't know how the game went over, so no clue if it was popular or not.
Disgaea is kinda FFT on steroids.
if you want more than 99 levels, Disgaea is for you.
Having a party of 9999 lvl characters that deal INSANE damage amount has it's advantages. You can also reincarnate your characters to learn other class jobs, power level them, power level items , and replay the story with scaled difficulty.
Basically, you can play it multiple times without ever getting bored.
How did brigandine legend of forsena not make this list
brigandine grand edition is better
thumbs up for mentioning Warsong
I am happy to see Disgaea getting some love. That series doesn't get enough attention.
Tactics Ogre is more indepth than FF Tactics (make sure you pick up FF tactics th war of the lions, it's the updated version). But Tactics Ogre is roughly the same quality wise. They're both 10/10 for me, leaning a little more to TO. Just as an addition. you can pick up Valkyria Chronicles 2 on the PS Vita/PS3 from the online store through PSN. (it looks identeical to the one here, it's the full game, awsome graphics)
Agreed
Can anyone please help me. There is a handheld tactics JRPG. The main character is a girl who works for the church. Her attack is punching. She meets a mysterious dark ally who uses guns. His dark side is evil. Not much to go on I know.
Dunno, the spinoffs were pretty great. A2 especially was one hell of a game.
Andrew Caffiene A2 was such a horrible and slow grind fest that I couldn't stomach it. I played it on an emulator at 3x speed and it was still a slow ass grind to even learn a single skill. I couldn't have the patience with it. And the races still felt horribly balanced. Humans, Moogles and Viera were pretty much the top races and the rest were just "Meh" in comparison. Moogles had insane range, Viera were nerfed on Assassin, but Blood Price Double Cast was just as broken and humans had their Parivir shenanigans and Magick Frenzy.
PinuyashaRPG I think I may have had an easier time on the learning front because I went for specific things and spammed them most of the time. Then just handed them a new thing to carry around every now and then while sticking to those starter moves (with the bonuses, few seemed to take too long imho...at least compared to TOLUCT's more useful stuff). Then again, most fights rarely last two rounds, there was a combo I used from relatively early on: just have someone drop an Ether on that fluffy bear thing illusionist, and have him turbo-mp whatever everyone's weak to. Now THAT was broken. Fairly easy to get, and it was like a one-shot smart bomb. When I could my lizard guy into a cannoneer, and just use either shots instead (I just imagined they were hanging out at a bar, and the fluffy guy snaps how fingers every now and then to make problems go away). Either way, overall I think I had the literal opposite impression. Humans had a lot of skills, but seemed to have a damage dropoff, mostly had my two as support. moogles had cool moves, but my favorite was a gunner with the knight skills. he just stopped things when needed, and apparently the knight Ultima move still works with a gun. Bunny lady was mostly there for status effects...I don't think I even used the new groups much.
Andrew Caffiene
I mixed up the Cannoneer and Flintlock class. Bangaa had Cannoneer, so they were the useful ones, not the Moogles.
If you combined Dual Wield + Magick Frenzy on a Human, they would hit ALL enemies on the map with a spell, then strike them twice with each weapon equipped. That's 3 hits total with infinite range. The damage output and utility is just crazy. And it makes the Nu Mou worthless because Humans dealt more damage while needing less Ethers. Same with the Viera.
Blood Price meant they used their HP to cast when they didn't have MP. A Viera Summoner can equip a robe to absorb let's say Fire, then Dualcast Ifrit on on enemies and themselves. Ifrit would damage the enemies and heal the Viera for far more than the MP they spent to cast the spell. Therefore a Viera was an infinite spring of MP. They fueled themselves and could never run out.
You didn't play this game nearly as in-depth as you think if you didn't discover these insanely broken combos. Humans and Viera invalidated ALL other races and their broken combos even invalidate all of the other classes in their own race. The only purpose every other class served was to support these broken races destroying everything. You could camp in a corner and Illutionist Magick Frenzy the entire map while a Cannoneer feeds you free MP or you can have a Viera nuke the field with infinite Summons and Ultima Mashers.
But that unbalanced stuff aside, that doesn't change the fact that the game is HORRENDOUSLY slow. There's so much lag between selecting actions and performing them. There's lag everywhere in this game with every action. Even when the AI is picking their move, there's just SO MUCH LAG. I swear to Yevon the AI takes a million years to decide actions. Open up a video of FFTA2 being played and open up a video of FFT being played. Just look at how long the AI takes to move in FFT vs FFTA2. Look how long it takes for menus to open up and for characters to perform actions. It's ridiculous how slow it is.
Then if we compare JP vs AP gaining. JP is per action. AP is per battle. JP scales up in amount gained by the unit's level and Job Level. The farther in game you get, the faster it is to learn skills from a class and to level that class up. AP never exceeds 90 per battle and that's late game when you have the Clan Privileges for it. I can learn a single 100 JP skill in 2-3 actions later on in FFT. I must still fight 2 battles to learn one 100 AP skill in FFTA2, and that 80 leftover AP is completely wasted. I had to do a whole battle for one stupid ability.
If I want to grind on FFT, I can have a character spam actions to get a ton of JP fast. JP also spills over to other units by 33%. So if one character gets 30 JP for Black Mage, then all units with get 10 JP in Black Mage as well (33% of the 30 JP). Spamming actions for one unit levels all units, and this effect is magnified when you have two characters of the same class JP boosting themselves and the other units indirectly.
FFTA2 has no mechanics like this built in. You must fight many stupid, boring and easily won battles to learn any skills. And with no spillover AP, any time a character switches to a new class, they are worthless. They have 0 abilities and no way to learn more aside from entering battle while being dead weight. This does not happen in FFT because a unit fresh to a class can use Spillover JP to pick up a few nice skills. And they will probably have gained a few Job Levels in the process, so they will master a new class faster than the previous unit who they got the Spillover JP from. It's brilliant. Meanwhile, FFTA2 promotes the use of a diverse range of classes split among a diverse pool of races, but makes it even harder to keep everyone on the same footing as each other.
Also, since Abilities are tied to equipment, even if you get a new class, if you don't have the right equipment, they are worthless. They'll have no abilities. FFT does not gate you at all. Learn whatever your heart desires.
The way FFTA2 handles AP is what turns FFTA2 into a slow dredge through a swamp. And the original FFTA is no better, but I'd like to focus on FFTA2, and I can just say "Laws" and you already know FFTA sucks.
You ever tried FFTA X? It was a pretty decent overhaul to FFTA that fixed a lot of the dull stuff. Granted, FFT is such a friggin beauty of game design that I doubt we'll see much more unless we get time-traveling versions of those people. Mostly I say this in case You've ever played Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together.
If not, here was more or less the deal. Originally, it was the thing that led to FFT, You had a few classes, and skills were few and locked in per class, with changeable spell and item slots, up to 4 per person. It worked wonders for shenanigans, since You could drop a spear on a fairy with 3 evasion items and have the most annoying harasser ever. Both of the original two Tactics Ogre games were more about setting up formations, You could have double the amount of units of FFT in most cases, and setting up Your units on good ground was often more important than having one overpowered one. Anyhow, the original LUCT was a balancing mess, with archers being ungodly broken under every single circumstance, but the GBA prequel was actually pretty amazing, if, well, slow. That mess was slooooow as crap, but again, the gba wasn't exactly a supercomputer. If You speed it up on an emulator, it's really an incredibly good strategy game. The GBA one was slightly more linear, but had way better balance, the original had one hell of a story with a choose-Your-own-adventure type thing going on, but yeah, levels mattered too much, and man...them archers.
So now back to me point, a good bit of the people from FFT came back around 2010ish to make a remake of their original strategy game, trying to make it more like FFT. Thing is, they took it a biiiit too far. See, the original LUCT had You losing units pretty regularly, this was a war, after all, the narrative reflected this, and if You got Your unique guys to the end, You earned Your extra dialogue and story sequences. At any time, the damage was as high as FFT, so units were far from safe, even an overpowered team of archers.
So when they made they remake, they added in skills, more classes, crafting (OH GOD NO THE SLOWNESS D-:) removed gender classes, added a death counter, and then gave everyone 3 lives on top of that. The issue was that whoever balanced the skills must have been drunk or never played a game before, because that mess was confusing. One that gets mentioned a lot are the passives, like Fortify and Strengthen. You would think "Hey, I ran into those, they just boost defense and offense, seems basic, I'll take them.". Well, Your passives, specials and actives all have to fit into 10 slots. Normally I'd like that sort of system, but here's the thing, those ones I mentioned above? Well...they only work under incredibly specific circumstances. Like strengthen only actually strengthens based on whether or not You're already stronger than the other guy, in which case it's like 6% or something. Meanwhile You get other moves that give 100% hit chance and 100% critical on someone halfway across the map. Oh, and You don't level units, that's another confusing thing, You level their class, which then is hindered by their level for getting better things. So You can have a guy that's basically like Orlandu in a fight, and he's suddenly 30 levels, or like 45 fights below everyone else when he joins. The only way to effectively raise him is to just turn everyone into his class, then grind it out on a bunch of battles with no skills whatsoever.
Each unit has a pool of skill points for every class, but rarely do they actually cross over between classes, and even then seem to do so with minimal actual usefulness. Hell, some have no purpose at all, like giving a knight a cudgel. You'd think "Knight plus mace = paladin or some crap"...well, the way weapon skills work, if someone doesn't have one, they just suck, if they do have it they get to near perfect accuracy real quick, and then 2+ (You grind these up independently), You get killmoves based on what is a more or less momentum bar. The only usefulness that skill has is if You gave some guy a stick, made them beat a squishy class over the head with it for like 6 hours, got it to 2 (It's based on damage, cudgels can barely break double digits usually), and then, You can do a crappy hit 4 times in a row. Compare that with swords, which are decent and usually get a double slash within an hour, or bows that can cripple peoples, or crossbows, which turn into a friggin grenade launcher at level 2. I kid You not, their special is an AOE explosion that doesn't need to even be in sight to work. Plus with heavy crossbows being available right at the start, You can functionally just go to a medieval war with modern firepower.
Anyhow, sorry for the wall of text, there was a lot to that one. I still like it...game's smooth as glass in terms of presentation, friggin love the music to death, the story is amazing and adaptive, and man is everything other than the crafting snappy, but it just bothers me to think of how amazing this remake could've been.
good video...pretty good recommendation thanks bro...and this video is exactly what I was looking for ...some games similar to FFT ....so tactis ogre and valkirye chronicles looks awsome.... I have already played Fire emblem from game and this game is perfect
If you're looking for MMOs, I do recommend wakfu and Dofus. Wakfu is well made however I do find the combat of Dofus way more engaging when they don't nerf your favorite class.
I really enjoyed front mission 3 and loved it just as much as final fantasy tactics. Those a disgaea are the only strategy games where I had spent over 200+ hours to play.
There was another game on playstation like tactics I cant remember the name but you would fight as mythological monsters , they had Griffins, Dragons , Phoenixes, it was really a good game. Everytime you attacked it would have a cut scene , I dont remember if you could skip it or not
I personally like ffta and a2. I like how different races have their own mechanics, and some unique jobs for each class. The story is a bit lacking though as I like to take non story quests with non story characters more, making up my own story in my head.
Another tactics game I really love is the Advance Wars games. It's not quite like fft, but it's a whole lot of fun, even more if played with friends.
I guess there's also that Ragnarok Tactics game on the PSP. I don't remember what it's called. The story is very boring though, the only fun I had with it is the character creation. You could create and customize an entire party and make up your own stories, at least that's how I played it.
The great thing about FFTA is that it has a better job roster, IMO even better that FFT.
In the original, ninjas/chemists had to learn to throw/use EVERY item, dragoons had to learn to reach EVERY tile, and archers had to learn to charge EVERY power level for their aim skill. Not to mention other jobs no one used that were too ineffective, like the bard, orator and the dancer, as well as complicated jobs like mime and arithmetician. And honestly, multiplayer is a dead end for anyone without friends to play, so making a stronger dark knight or viable onion knight was a pipe dream. FFT jobs were all pretty straight-forward. Some were weird, but all were pretty spartan in their skill sets to the point you only really need the 1st 10 jobs.
FFTA on the other hand makes it fun to use every job. Synergry is really great, such as a mog knight main with jester sub-abilites. Also paladin with blue mage sub abilities and double sword. Another fun thing to do was make an unstoppable team than the game literally couldn't beat you anymore. The Advance job roster eliminates nearly all the redundancies of the 1st game. The only jobs I didn't use were the Soldier, because it was outclassed
by other jobs, and the Gadgeteer, because its abilities were too unpredictable.
RPGMaster FFT may have the better story, but it's bias to dismiss FFTA's story just because it wasn't as good. It was basically about a kid trying to get some other kids to deal with their escapist issues and come back to reality. It might not be as epic or well-written as FFT and a lot of people do feel the plot is watered down because the resolution was quite obvious to people who understood FFT's level of maturity, but let's not forget the console FFTA was developed for was the GBA. Kids bought them at the time and they were the target demographic, so a simple enough story was needed. And as early FF games have proven, even simple stories can be great.
So yeah FFT has the better story, but FFTA still did a great job too.
@Jerry Smith that's a very un-Jerry of you to say.
Great video love it
clicked for vandal hearts 2! so, SO good.
Can you tell me why it is good? I remember trying it out back then, but I guess there was a simultaneous movement thing that threw me off.
movement system is weird because an enemy moves at the same time you do. After the first 1-2 battles you can see the pattern though. The story is unique though and I thought it was done very well.
Yes and the villains had depht (at least for the ps1 era). And although the movement system is weird I like it and sometimes it can catch of guard if you make a wrong prediction.
Invisible Inc is a great turn based strategy game, I played it for free when it came to PS plus and was blown away by the difficulty. It's an espionage turn based strategy game and is really amazing, challenging with insane replay value.
It depends on which you play first. These are all great titles.
fire emblem and fft :< hhmmm.. how about ygdra union for gba and psp?
Can you please do a video over ogre battle 64
this list was nice. however, until i get a PS4 or PS vita, seems not many other tactics games offer a class system with the amount of customizability and depth per playable character that final fantasy tactics offers. from each playable character being able to unlock each class to being able to unlock skills from each class for each character, to allow for maximum strategizing before each storyline battle
I know this video is old but its automatically my favorite simply because you didn't include advance wars
PSP version of Tactics Ogre isn't the definitive version. It adds some cool things sure, but it also adds some things to the game that really kill it. Want to change classes to a brand new class you just acquired in Chapter 4? They start on level 1, so you're required to toss them in the corner until they're up to the rest of the teams level, because not only are they on level 1, but equipment has a level requirement, making the class completely worthless until they're closer to the rest of the characters levels. Archers and magic users were a bit more powerful than melee users in the original, but now the classes are a joke in comparison. Movement is reduced by one for every class, so progression is abysmally slow this time around. It has some nice additions, but the definitive edition means best version, and the original and PSX port are it.
Brigandine: Grand Edition with English patch is a mega hidden gem! It blows away Dragon Force by its awesomeness. Oh, you forgot Vanguard Bandits too!
how odd that you didn't bring up the Smt devil survivor series
Had to pause the video to enjoy the goosebumps that manifested after hearing the theme music.
God, what an awesome game.
While not as good as FF Tactics, I immensely enjoyed Vandal Hearts 1 (didn't like 2 for the simultaneous turn system). Saiyuki: Journey to the West is another good one (although very easy with low production values). You can check them out Game Clouds! No mention of X-Com either?!?!
Why no Vandal Hearts II ? I played it first before FFT. And its so good. so I got a bit annoyed at FFT camera angles during gameplay. But FFTs jobs are great.
I feel like you probably didn't watch the whole video my friend :>
@@GameClouds Well but at least he knows what a good game was. Tactic and story are nice and a special mention to how every villain had a point. Unlike other games where the villains are evil to be evil. All in all great for the Ps1 era.
Hi i love tactics games , fft is my favorite.. i know other but its not very famous; Eternal poison for PS2, and a new game by nexon for android called Fantasy war tactics wich i LOVE! is a 10/10 for me try it im sure you will enjoy it or anyone here who likes tactics games :)
No mention for FFTA?
I highly recommend the front mission series specifically FM3 and FM4
Speaking of games like Final Fantasy Tactics, you should've definitely mentioned Shingen the Ruler for the Nintendo. It was released years before Shining Force and could've possibly been the first game to feature the turn-based strategy gameplay long before role-playing games did it.
Arc The Lad and Brigandine are great tactics game also.
um saiyuki journey west, how do you not know about it
That game sucks ass
actually... I have a SRPG that very few if ANYONE ever talks about, and people tend to be negative about it because of how poor it's visuals have aged, the platform it's for, and a rather rough translation. It's called Guardian War, or Powers Kingdom in Japan.
Guardian War is a strategy RPG that takes place on a strange alien world where the goddess Hera battles the dark forces of Azriel. her ability to fight is weakened though, save for the power to awaken a single Golem in a shrine. it then becomes that Golem's mission to go about the world, fighting his way through monsters to get to other shrines to wake up it's golem bretheren.
Why I suggest this one is because although it's VERY simplified, the golems all get changable bodies that function like the Jobs of Final Fantasy Tactics, with your golems having to level up in a specific body type to become more proficient with it and unlock even more potent versions of that body to change into. you can have one main body and two sub-bodies, effectively making this something akin to the job system!
If you want other suggestions for this list, Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth is probably another great suggestion that could go on this list. Crimson Shroud on 3DS might also scratch the itch of those who particularly are fans of Matsuno's work. Pokemon Conquest may also help.
Hoshigami IMHO is not that great. For some reason they decided that the selling point for the game would have to be its insane difficulty, where even grinding can be risky for your squad integrity. I stopped playing it after my character getting permakilled by 3 archers before anyone from my team got a move.
Another great one to add is Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday on the Genesis... And you completely forgot about Shining Force III on the Saturn, or Shining Force CD, even though it was a remake of the Game Gear titles it had hours upon hours of great SRPG gameplay in store
What about Kings Bounty?? It’s a really good game, it’s on Steam
jeanne d'arc is probably better than at least 1 of those-- I'd put it above fire emblem as a whole. Arc the Lad series is at least worth a mention. Nothing can even touch Tactics though.
I grew up on Shining Force 1 and 2 and have played through the game at least 15x in the last twenty years or so. Amazing game and would highly recommend it. Only $2 on Steam.
Knight of lodis
Luminous arc
Advance wars
Those were the days!
In fact, I hope to play them on 3dsxl using flash Rom.
If not, I'll pick up a dsixl and get the cartridge.
Too bad we didn't get luminous arc 3 eyes....
Excellent video
Where can I download Tactics Ogre?
ps playstore for vita or psp
FFT is the ultimate tactics game, Tactic Orge is a VERY good game but The 2 that I like a whole lot are Dynasty Tactics 1 & 2, DT2 is really cool bcuz of the combos one can do. Also you can choose from 3 Main characters and you can play multiple times to clear storylines. The bigger plus to both games is that it has PvP option, so cool to battle your opponents but they are not online challenges, highly recommend.
Brigandine gets overlooked. It was a classic on PS1, and its been remade for switch but because it was made by a small and little known team it isnt well known, but it is a great tactics game. Not so much rpg, but more of a conquer-the-map game with heavy rpg features and a class change system for human and monster characters. worth checking out, though as far as I know its only on switch I could be wrong.....